


Day 10

by rad_twister



Series: Blizzard In July 2020 [5]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blizzard In July, Computer Viruses, Influenza, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Season/Series 12, Sickfic, Some Humor, how does a nindroid become ill huh???, i beat logic to death with a stick to make this happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rad_twister/pseuds/rad_twister
Summary: Day 10 of Blizzard In July! | It’s flu season.
Relationships: Morro/Zane (Ninjago)
Series: Blizzard In July 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811917
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Day 10

**Author's Note:**

> the tone in this one does some sick skateboard tricks and sweet parkour between humorous and sad so have fun with that guys
> 
> i genuinely couldn’t restrain myself from sprinkling the fic with a little bit of zangst

“Rise and shiiine, everyone!” Jay sang, slamming the door open to one of the shared bedrooms in the _Destiny’s Bounty 2.0_. “It’s a _beautiful_ winter morning, the sun is shining, and I’m ready to start the day! Now if you’re all done bei— hey!”

Cole glared, picking up another pillow and aiming it at his best friend. “You have till the count of three,” he warned.

In response, Jay leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms and smirking. “Looks like _someone_ didn’t get enough beauty sleep.”

The pillow hit his face this time. Jay marched over and dragged Cole out of bed, loudly challenging him to a fight. By now, everyone had woken up. The elemental masters of Earth and Lightning left the room and went to the deck for an early morning “training session”—(read: friendly battle to the death)—leaving Kai to grumble about how he was going to beat Jay into the dirt later as he, too, left the room. No use trying to go back to sleep. 

Buried beneath the covers, their resident ex-enemy groaned. “What day is it?” he mumbled, voice scratchy. A horrible cough followed right after. 

And their resident nindroid, who curled up on the bed next to him, tried to answer. “Yadsendew.” He paused a moment, eyes widening. “Wednesday,” he hastily corrected. 

Morro didn’t seem to notice the vocal glitch, instead opting to turn around in the bed, kick the covers off him, and attempt to burrow underneath Zane’s arm. A red flush spread across his cheeks, and he groaned again in discomfort. “Ugh… Wake me up tomorrow.” Not even a second later he slipped off into heavy unconsciousness. 

That worried Zane. He got up on his elbow, looking down at his sleeping partner, and gently brushed a few strands of hair out of his face. Pressing his palm to Morro’s forehead, Zane took his temperature, and frowned. 38.6℃—a high fever. Careful not to wake Morro, he got out of bed, and walked to the ship’s kitchen to get a glass of water. He greeted a few of his teammates as he passed them and returned to the bedroom, holding the glass in one hand and gently shaking Morro awake with the other. 

“Mmh... what?” Finally, the Master of Wind opened his eyes, his glare softening once he saw that it was only Zane. He sat up, shivering just a bit. “I feel horrible…”

“You are ill,” Zane informed bluntly. “Your body temperature is exceeding the normal range by one point six degrees.”

Morro eyed the glass, grabbing it and chugging half the water down in one go. “My throat hurts,” he complained. He tried to stand up, but Zane pushed him back down.

“You need to rest,” he said. “I’ll go get you breakfast and medicine. You stay here, and call me if you suddenly develop dangerous symptoms.”

“Those being…?”

“Hallucinations, difficulty breathing, sudden light-headedness, vomiting, et cetera.”

“Yikes.” He flopped back down onto the bed, waiting patiently for his lover to return. Morro let his eyelids fall shut again, internally going through a list of everything that bothered him at the moment. Sore throat, check. Shivering, check. Stuffy nose, check. Nausea? It was there, alright. 

…Okay, he wasn’t very patient at all. 

Despite Zane telling him to stay put, Morro got up. What could he say? The bladder waits for no one. He trudged to the bathroom, annoyed by the unnecessary soreness in his muscles. It felt like he’d been training four days straight, even though he definitely hadn’t! What was up with that? 

Unfortunately, the bathroom housed one occupant: Kai. The creak of the door startled him. 

Morro sniffled. It was ugly and wet. 

Kai grimaced, looking the ex-ghost up and down. “Man, you look terrible.”

“Mhm, you don’t say, huh?” Morro pushed the door open further, pointing towards the hallway. “Get out, I need this place to myself for a few minutes.”

“And _I_ need to fix my hair,” Kai countered. 

“Kai, I swear by the First I’m about to hurl on your precious hair. Get out.”

“Okay, gross! I’m leaving!” 

Morro slammed and locked the door as soon as he was alone, and leaned over the sink, gritting his teeth against a wave of nausea. 

“So what, do you have the flu or something?” The irritating Red Ninja hadn’t left, it seemed, and his irritating voice floated through the wood as he chatted, waiting for Morro to be done in there so he could resume gelling up his irritating spiky hair. 

“I guess so.”

“Weakling!”

“What?” Morro blinked, trying to fathom where that insult had come from. 

“Can’t believe anyone gets sick from the flu anymore. You’d think with all these vaccines that it wouldn’t actually get to anyone…”

“What’s a _‘vaccine’_?”

Kai laughed, but went silent when he didn’t hear Morro laugh too. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

It was quiet for a moment. And then: “I’m gonna go talk to Wu.” The sound of his footsteps receding down the hall was the last thing Morro heard from the Master of Fire before faint shouting reached his ears. He used the moment of peace and quiet to do what he actually came here to do, washing his hands afterwards and then immediately returning to his and Zane’s shared bed so he could bask in his misery among the blankets and pillows. 

In the kitchen, Zane busied himself prepping a breakfast for the rest of his team. Jay bounced into the room, considerably disheveled, and sat down at the table to pull out his phone and start scrolling through it. “So… whatcha makin’?” he called out.

“Get your feet off the table, Jay,” Zane sighed, chopping some vegetables. “We _eat_ there.”

Jay swung his legs off the table to sit normally, rolling his eyes. “Lighten up! It’s holiday season.” He jumped a bit when he heard a door slam somewhere in the _Bounty_. During the following minutes the dining area fell into comfortable silence, the sounds of cooking and faint bickering the only interruptions to break it. The girls and Lloyd wandered in, possibly drawn by the smell of food. 

“Good morning,” Nya greeted, giving Jay a quick peck on the cheek.

“Zane’s being a tyrant again,” Jay whined. “Won’t even let me sit in peace.”

The nindroid stiffened, unnoticed by his teammates. For a brief second, he could’ve sworn he heard the howling winds… for a second, the world faded into a blur of white and bitter cold; he could hear the echoed screams of the Never-Realm, the cries of the innocents he’d...

His vision flickered in and out, and Zane gasped, pausing his movement until his vision returned to normal. Some of his senses had been buggy ever since that time the Mechanic used him and his power capacitor to complete the interdimensional portal between _Prime Empire_ and Ninjago. It’d been steadily getting worse over the past week, but it was very hard to ignore today. Hadn’t even been half an hour since he woken up and he’d already glitched two times! If this continued he’d need to take a look at his internal processors and see if anything had been horribly damaged that he missed while running a diagnostic last week.

Zane shook his head clear of all those thoughts—painful memories—and focused on finishing up breakfast. One of his finger joints locked up, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. He’d fix it later, _after_ he was done taking care of his family for the morning. 

By the time the meal was done, everyone had trickled into the dining room and were either seated at, or helping set, the table. As Cole carried a pile of plates and bundle of silverware to pass out to everyone, Zane sneaked out of the room and headed back to the bedroom. 

“Are you doing alright?” he inquired softly as he entered, flicking the lightswitch on and crossing the room to sit next to his partner. He set the tray of food on Morro’s lap, and handed him a pill to combat the fever. “Eat a little first, and then take the medicine. It’s not good to take it on an empty stomach.”

Morro nodded, although he looked lost in thought. “Thank you.” He took a bite of warm rice, and Zane carefully watched him, scanning over his pale features and the dark rings around his eyes. “This is nice.” His voice was so quiet, like it frightened him—the prospect of admitting to wanting to be taken care of every once in a while.

“Of course,” Zane responded, all-too aware of the wind elemental’s past. It hurt his heart to think about those years alone on the streets, when Morro was just a child fending for his life in a harsh world. Zane stayed with his boyfriend until the ex-ghost had eaten as much as he could manage without getting sick to his stomach, and carried the dishes away for him, still insisting that Morro needed rest.

Kai was still arguing with Sensei Wu, and had somehow roped Nya and Pixal in with him. “What do you _mean_ peppermint oil is good enough?!” 

“Well, mint tea can also—”

The conversation got even louder.

Zane was out of there as quick as he could manage.

He found Morro had built a nest/fort/pillow thingy while he was away, and the ailing wind elemental gestured for him to get in. “You’re not gonna get sick, so you’re like the only person I can touch right now without infecting,” he reasoned, pulling the blanket over the two of them and snuggling closer to the nindroid. He sneezed twice in a row, and a violent gust of wind tore up the room. “Oh… oops.”

It was dark under the heavy comforter, but Zane’s glowing eyes illuminated the space just enough for them to see each other. “You don’t need to apologize,” he whispered, pulling Morro closer to him. He took the moment to take Morro’s temperature again, pleased that it had fallen down to a healthy number. 

“So you keep asking if I’m doing alright... but are _you_?”

“Tahw—“ He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

“ _That_. That right there. Is something up with your voice? I’m pretty sure you said something backwards earlier this morning too.” Morro tilted his head so he was looking up at Zane. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing. I am completely fine.” 

“You’re lying, I can tell.”

“On, m’I gnillet eht hturht— th— the tr-truth.” He paused, embarrassed. “That doesn’t really prove my point, does it,” he sighed. 

“If something’s wrong, why don’t you ask anyone to—” a cough interrupted his sentence “—to help you?” 

“They have enough to worry about.” 

“You aren’t a second priority, Zane.”

He rested his chin on Morro’s head, arms wrapped around the ex-ghost’s waist and nervously twiddling his thumbs. Two other fingers had locked up. It appeared the mysterious problem was spreading, but he didn’t need to worry about that until later, when he was sure Morro would be okay. He was thankful for the dim lighting, because that way Morro couldn’t see or question his stiff movements. 

“Maybe,” he answered quietly. 

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

They basked in their shared warmth. Eventually Morro fell asleep, and Zane was content to simply stay there, adjusting his own temperature to make sure Morro didn’t overheat. He was glad no one interrupted them. Word must’ve gotten around that Morro had a contagious virus, as the rest of the team was avoiding the room like it housed the plague.

Despite it being unnecessary, Zane let himself fall asleep too. He ran some more background diagnostics on himself—he’d get the results once he woke up—and allowed himself to dream for just a bit. Just a small amount, just a tiny trip into a place where the fate of the world didn’t rest on anyone’s shoulders, mechanical or otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> (𝘸𝘶'𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪-𝘷𝘢𝘹𝘹𝘦𝘳, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘴)
> 
> sorry this one’s a bit late! how would y’all feel if i started posting artworks here too?


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